Google search's new basic calculator

[danabramov]

Interesting how Microsoft and Google have different ideas of how percentage key (%) should work.

Relevant post by Raymond Chen:

“How does the [Windows] calculator percent key work?”

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/10/70474...

Implementing % button, Google chose an approach which is more mathematically sensible but arguably less obvious to users. For Google, 10% just an alias for 0.1. This means that if you want to calculate how much a dress with a price of $299 costs with a 20% discount, type in

  299 + 299 × 20%

Perhaps, this is exactly how you think % should work.

Microsoft, however, chose to make “%” key more user-friendly, perhaps sacrificing some consistency. Windows calculator tries to use the last computed value as “the whole”. Therefore,

  299 - 20%

will give you how much a $299 dress costs with 20% discount, and

  299 + 5% - 20%

will help you calculate 5% tax before applying the discount.

Sadly, Google thinks

  500 + 1% = 500.01

which is really not that helpful.

[Spittie]

I don't get it, if i try 500 + 1% on Google i get 505 http://sadpanda.us/images/1112074-RA9OURZ.png

[elisee]

I just tested it and the percent key in the Google calculator doesn't work like the one described in the linked article. It really just divides by 100.

3 + 5% = 3 + 0.05 = 3.05

[scotty79]

The way Microsoft did it is the same way most physical calculators I've seen work.

[aristidb]

Link that works for people with non-English Google:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=calculator

(The link is setting the language to English for just that search.)

[jacobr]

Thanks, I wonder why they would only enable this for English searches?

[Semaphor]

ha, I wondered why I got the old interface when my normal searches give me the new one;) I have chrome set to go to the English site;)

Thanks.

[gnyman]

thanks, I tried to double check that the url would work for everyone but did not think about the automatic redirect to local the local google

[jwilliams]

I noticed there is also a new visual interface for unit conversions. e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=1kg%20in%20lbs

[Achshar]

That is to say there was one earlier. It used to be just result, no interface.

[scottfr]

Shameless plug:

I would like you to check out the calculator I built:

http://herocalc.com

It's pure Javascript, has a full parser/tree-builder to process equations, allows you to define functions and variables, and is very fast.

It also installs a search handler so you can do calculations from your search bar.

[AstroJetson]

So 299+5% and/or 299+(5%) to figure the sales tax does not work at all, it just says "Your equation has an error. Please correct it." and no hint to what the error is.

Sorry, not ready for prime time

[MattBearman]

What a complete load of shit. You have to actually click the numbers, you can't use your computer's keyboard. Google, I am disappoint.

[elisee]

You can type your calculation as a google query and you'll get the result. This calculator is designed for people looking for a mouse- / touch-based UI.

[Kwpolska]

Don’t forget that the preferred method to do calculations with google is to put them into the search box.

[madrona]

I bet they are doing this to collect data on my favorite numbers! Don't bubble my calculations, Google!

[gaving]

Interesting, works for:-

http://www.google.com/search?q=9/10

But not:-

http://www.google.com/search?q=9/11

Also seems like it could be much smaller, since it's following this increasing trend to devote less and less screen real-estate to search results.

[gburt]

This is Google trying to outsmart you. It thinks you're searching for Sept. 11 if you type 9/11. It happens quite regularly with other queries, add a = sign to force the calculator.

[djtriptych]

You can force a calculator result with an equals sign:

http://www.google.com/search?q=9/11=

[TeMPOraL]

My guess is 9/11 was if-ed out; if someone types that into a query, one most likely wants to see results related to WTC attack.

[kappaloris]

would be nice if you could use the keyboard

[bakhlawa]

I couldn't help but wonder how much traffic is lost by online-calculator.com, the first search result...

[webmonkeyuk]

Your submission seems to be doing better than mine from earlier in the week http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4295093

[imrehg]

There's also graphical calculator, or is that not a new thing? I don't remember seeing it before. For example: http://goo.gl/uSSWW

[lvh]

% is percentage, not mod (with our without signs). Damn normals!

[herrturtur]

That's pretty cool. The only thing I'd change is to make it clearer that the top left button switches between rad and deg.

[JosephHatfield]

Bah, humbug! If it's not RPN, it's crap! :)

[damoncali]

Also cool: In Chrome, type "0xff in decimal" in the address bar.

"=255" appears as one of the suggested searches.

[shrikant]

This happens for basic calculation really, for which Google spits out an answer. And since it's a feature of Google Suggest, it also works in Firefox.

[acomjean]

the often forgotten unix, linux command line calculators I use all the time.

bc -l

or for those who like rpn

dc

[cynusx]

I just fire up irb these days

[gaving]

builtin zcalc's good if you're a zsh user:-

    seth:~% which calc
    calc: aliased to noglob zcalc
    seth:~% calc ((8*8)/8)*8
    64

[ilija139]

I just use spotlight

[djtriptych]

python -i

:)

[mitakas]

And then, there are units and bc.

[yumraj]

9^9^9 = Infinity and 9^9^9^9 gives Error :)

[ubershmekel]

I'm holding my breath for "stopwatch".